This conclusion was reached by scientists from the United States. They say a person is more likely to accept pseudo-scientific or erroneous opinions if they believe they are divided by the majority rather than actual scientific data.

Results

• Researchers from the University of California at Berkeley note that as social beings, people value the opinions of others. For some it manifests itself to a greater extent, for others – to a lesser extent. But for the human race in general, taking into account the views of their peers plays a very important role.
• More than 600 US adults were interviewed in two online experiments. Everyone was asked to rate how much they believed each of the 30 statements on a scale of one to one hundred.
• Polls have included climate change, racial stereotypes, autism-induced vaccination, and conspiracy theories such as Hillary Clinton’s head of an organization that sells children as sexual slaves, the terrorist attacks of September 11, or the alien visitation of the United States today.
• Participants were then asked to guess how many people shared a point of view.
• And then the participants were shown distorted facts: they were shown statistics on how many people believed and did not believe one or the other of the above statements.

Our study shows that people are more likely to adopt pseudo-scientific or simply erroneous views if they believe they are more popular in society.
– said psychologist Evan Ortizio, lead author of the study.

These and similar studies clearly show the factors that cause the rapid spread of conspiracy theories, which creates the necessary level of visibility for the participants in society, thereby attracting new followers.